Catherine Arnold Elected TCDSU Education Officer

Arnold received 81.99% of the vote in the uncontested election

Catherine Arnold has been elected as the next Education Officer of Trinity College Dublin 

Student’s Union (TCDSU). 

Running unopposed, Arnold received 81.99% of first preference votes. The remaining 13.19% voted to re-open nominations (RON). In total,  there were 1526 valid ballots cast in the Education race. 

Arnold is a senior sophister philosophy and sociology student. They are currently serving as Deputy Arts, Humanities and Social Science (AHSS) Convenor. They have previously served as Joint Honours Convenor of TCDSU and as Gender Equality Officer for the Labour Party. 

Arnold will take over from the incumbent Education Officer Zöe Cummins during the summer. 

Speaking to Trinity News following their victory, Arnold said: “It’s an absolute privilege to have won this election.” 

“I promise to stand by my campaign promises and to establish the long term policy and the long ter, changes that needs to happen to improve the lives of the regular students.”

Arnold promises to take a “holistic” approach to education during their tenure. They plan to create online modules for staff, to educate them on their responsibility to uphold policies such as the Learning Educational Needs Summary (LENS) report. 

 Throughout their campaign, they also focused on themes of engagement, efficiency, and collaboration. In order to increase engagement among post-graduate students, Arnold plans to create two part-time paid roles for postgraduates to work alongside the sabbatical. They also intend  to create an Erasmus portal, where students can rate their Erasmus experience  and offer advice to incoming students. 

Polling carried out by Trinity News last week, indicated that Arnold would receive 80.6% of first preference votes, with a RON vote of 19.4%. In the poll, the education race had the highest proportion of undecided voters with 45.8% of respondents saying they didn’t know which way they would vote.

Charlotte Kent

Charlotte Kent is the Co-News Editor at Trinity News and a Senior Freshman PPES Student.